Sugar Cookies - Part II

The icing.


Again, here is a link to the icing recipe.


There is a whole video tutorial on here about how to get the right consistency.  Worth a look, but the cliff notes are that you should run a knife through the middle of your bowl of icing.  If the indent created by the knife closes up after roughly 10 seconds, you're good to go.  


I made the whole batch of icing.  Even though I halved the cookie recipe, I thought the icing might be trickier and had no idea how much it would actually make.  I wanted extra for do-overs.


The recipe is pretty straightforward but I will give you one tip - it calls for 2.25 lbs of powdered sugar.  It's an odd amount.  One bag is generally 2lb.  I measured it out and determined there are 8 cups of powdered sugar in a 2lb bag.  Therefore, use 9 cups.


I made everything in my Kitchen-Aid Mixer.  I just used the wire whisk attachment for the first part, then once I added the powdered sugar, I switched to the paddle.


It made a lot of icing!  This is what was left over after I removed enough to make two significant bowls of colored icing.

I was a little worried about the icing drying out.  I put a damp kitchen towel over the bowl on the counter for the course of 2 or 3 hours and it worked just fine.  Supposedly you can let it sit overnight (especially if you want bold colors - they deepen over time) but I didn't try that.


Once the icing is done, scoop some out into individual bowls to create your colors and get the right consistency.  I do recommend setting the consistency individually for each bowl because depending on your design, you might want some colors to be a little thinner than others.

Let me talk about colors for a second... I read blogs and checked in with a few of my cake decorating friends - Wilton colors seems to be the consensus as the best brand to use.  And they are easy to find - Michael's.  I was trying to achieve yellow and a bright/deep purple (LSU theme especially for Pat).  I used a plastic knife to dip into the color and then slid it through my icing.  Use a spoon to mix and blend the color well, and slowly add your warm water to achieve the right consistency.  Keep in mind, the colors are very concentrated.  If you want light colors, use a toothpick rather than a knife to transfer the coloring into the icing.  Use just a little - you can always add more.


Obviously, the deeper the color, the more icing you'll need.  The yellow was easy.  Color from the tip of my knife dipped once worked just fine.  The purple was a bit more complicated and I never achieved the color I wanted.  I probably should have played with adding some red and blue to further deepen it.  Next time.


Consistency.  As I mentioned at the beginning, the 10 second rule works well.  Especially for drawing outlines on your cookies.  If you know that you'll be filling in large areas of your cookie with one color, you can make it a little thinner so that it will spread and fill the space more easily, but I wouldn't go too far.  I used the 10 second rule for all my colors and was cursing the icing gods as I was filling in large spaces on those fleur de lis cookies.  The thicker icing took forever to cover the cookie and killed my hands!  


Here is the result when your "fill-in" color is too thick.

Decorating bags and tips.  Any size bag will work.  The 12 inch is pretty common and is a decent size for  most projects.  For the tips - to get the best outline for your cookie, I agree with the experts that the #2 tip is best.  For filling in larger spaces, the #4 tip worked great for me.  Again, all these supplies are easily found at Michael's.  Once you fill the bag with icing, twist it tightly or use a rubber band to cinch it.  It's next to impossible to keep the icing from creeping back up the bag as you are decorating.  You'll have to push it back down and re-twist several times.  I actually do have some experience decorating cakes (internship years ago) but I still made a mess.  And use small glasses to help keep your icing bags upright when you're not using them... otherwise, left in a horizontal position, your icing will slowly run and slide out the top of the bag.


Now you just need a steady, STRONG hand and a lot of patience.  Steadiness and patience I lack.  Recognizing what a process this would be is what led me to cut off the cookie production line at 18.  Thank God!  I almost couldn't get through decorating all 18.  I was tempted to give up and smear some icing on the last few.  But I dug deep and got it done.  And despite a well cut cookie, an unsteady hand on the outline can really foul up the whole thing.  Some of those fleur de lis cookies were looking rough.  They started looking more like a anchors if you ask me.  

If you need to, practice on parchment paper to get the feel for how quickly the icing will distribute.  Because once it's on the cookie there is no going back!


Finally, with a lot of practice and determination, here are the final few cookies decorated.  The flower design was MUCH easier!

Let the cookies dry for quite a while before stacking or bagging them.  I didn't bag them individually - as I will be doing for the party - and I'm sure that's a whole other blog post in waiting.  Ayayay - can't think about it right now.


I'm just glad the test project is done and I don't have to do this again for a few weeks.  


Despite all my whining, I must say that with a couple of kids old enough to participate and less lofty goals for the outcome yourself, this could be a really fun family activity!  Give me a couple of years and Syd and I will be having a ball making these at Christmas!


But for now, a few lessons for myself.  

• Allow plenty of time for the whole project.  More like 2 days.
• Stick to easy, uncomplicated shapes.
• Choose simple decorating designs.
• Lower my expectations.